‘The cloud’ is a term being used more and more each day and, for some people it still remains as strange as it did the first time they heard it. ‘The cloud’ kind of suggests that there is only one which isn’t strictly true. In IT, ‘a cloud’ refers to an external storage space for data and, that could be on a server, anywhere, the great thing is that, you can choose.

‘The cloud’ facts

Cost – Some companies have been using cloud services for a few years now and, because of their size they require a huge amount of storage and maintenance. For some companies, this can equate to millions being spent each year on upgrades, infrastructure and maintenance. For others, they can, if they want to, get a small amount of ‘free’ storage or pay very little for a reasonable amount of storage space but, that’s all you get.

Governments – Based on various studies looking at a variety of countries, you may be surprised to know that governments are actually the biggest users of a cloud services provider. Aside from the multibillion, mammoth organizations such as Google, governments keep enormous amounts of data that needs to be stored, somewhere.

Financial sector – Although governments hold the top spot for pure size in terms of the amount of storage they use, the financial sector, including banks, actually creates the most activity from day to day. It’s not surprising really when you consider the number of financial transactions done both personally and professionally via business banking. 

The majority of mobile banking apps that people use all make use of a cloud service of some kind or another and, if you add services like PayPal, Wise and Western Union it starts to paint a better picture of how busy the traffic must be. The number of transactions will become significantly more should things like Bitcoin take full effect and the old form of currency becomes decommissioned.

Growth projections – Year upon year, the projected growth forecasts of cloud computing have been smashed and will continue to the more that the world adopts automation and complete digital transformation. In the earlier days, the growth was more rapid because of how revolutionary it was. The spurt of growth has tailed off, but is still consistent as more and more people become IT savvy and wake up to its importance. 

Love – It may sound odd but, most people who use cloud services love them. In fact, they say that they couldn’t imagine life without being able to store, use and share their data as easily as they can do today!

Presence

You may be surprised to know that, according to various sources, over 80% of business owners have confirmed that they use some form of cloud computing. It gives you an idea of how widely used it has become and, what it means for the future, it won’t be long before that 80% turns into a figure nearer to 100%. For business owners, if they aren’t on board already then now would probably be a good time to check out the options.